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Friday, February 22, 2013

Ann Coulter Blows It

I don't know what's up with Ann Coulter these days. Maybe she just doesn't like freedom. John Stossel didn't do much better on the marriage issue either.

From the Mediate article, Coulter said about libertarians:

“We’re living in a country that is 70-percent socialist, the government takes 60 percent of your money. They are taking care of your health care, of your pensions. They’re telling you who you can hire, what the regulations will be. And you want to suck up to your little liberal friends and say, ‘Oh, but we want to legalize pot.’ You know, if you’re a little more manly you would tell them what your position on employment discrimination is. How about that? But it’s always ‘We want to legalize pot.’”

While this might be true about the Reason Foundation branch of libertarians of which John Stossel is certainly a member, the comment approaches straw-man proportions. Yes, those libertarians often frame the drug issue in exactly that way, rather than citing specific laws for repeal, like the Harrison Act. They use that fuzzy term "we want to legalize" which, to our friends on the Left, just means more laws, more regulation and more taxes.

The article quotes a later exchange with an audience member:

“How is it any of your business what I choose to put in my body if I’m not affecting anyone else?” one student asked during the Q&A, prompting the crowd to give a standing ovation.

“First of all, for alleged individualists, you’re very mob-like,” Coulter snarked. “Second of all, it is my business because we are living in a welfare state … Right now, I have to pay for, it turns out, coming down the pike, your health care. I have to pay for your unemployment when you can’t hold a job. I have to pay for your food, for your housing. Yeah, it’s my business!”

With a perfect opportunity to express a mildly conservative stance, that the government healthcare bureaucracy is going to do more damage to your liberty and privacy than any 'evil Rightwinger', she answers with the Leftist position: The answer to bad regulation is more regulation. She does not even go into the conservative utopia territory of "Well, if we didn't have this welfare state making your drug use even more expensive for the rest of us we might be able to talk about that, but . . ."

Then the conversation turned to marriage:

Stossel then asked: “Why can’t gays get married?”

“Well, they can,” Coulter replied. “They have to marry a member of the opposite sex.” The room filled with boos.

“This is another one where you’re just sucking up to liberals when there are big fights,” Coulter explained.

“No, we believe the individual should be left alone,” Stossel shot back.

“Marriage is the most important institution to civilize young people. I’d make divorce a lot more difficult,” she said. “Liberals want to destroy the family,” she continued, eliciting jeers and mocking laughter from the students.

If John Stossel wants the individual to be left alone, why is he supporting the government license of marriage position? If he supported that, the question would have been along the lines of "Why can't we repeal the marriage laws?"

Coulter blows that one as big as Stossel. The fact is, the Catholic Church invented marriage licensing for western civilization and governments adopted it from them. Licensing is always a restriction of freedom, it is never an expansion of freedom. If John Stossel's position were taken to its logical conclusion, everybody but hermits would be paying a marriage tax and a divorce tax when they found new partners.

What happened there was both sides took the political Left view of wanting the club of government to do their social work for them.

Even though a libertarian was on the stage, no libertarian positions were voiced.